Parent Trap
by PrincessDaydream77
Summary: AU. Harry and Ginny were happily married, expecting their first children, twin daughters. Then something went wrong. The couple divorced and Harry moved to America, taking one of them with him, while Ginny stayed in Britain with the other. So what happens when both girls attend Beauxbattons and discover their parents' secret, plotting one of their own? Will their parents find out?
1. Happy Anniversary

Parent Trap

Summary: AU. Harry and Ginny were happily married, expecting their first children, twin daughters. Then something went wrong. The couple divorced and Harry moved to America, taking one of their daughters with him, while Ginny stayed in Britain with the other. Eleven years later, when both girls are sent to Beauxbattons by their parents to avoid them finding out, they meet and discover their parents' secret, plotting one of their own. Can Phoenix and Crystal reunite their parents, or will Harry and Ginny decode the parent trap?

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I own the original Parent Trap. I only own Phoenix and Crystal.

Chapter One - Prologue

Bang. Bang. Bang. Flashes of light exploded all across the night sky as the bride and groom twirled around in the centre of the dance floor, set on the deck of the _H__.__M__.__S__.__ Shacklebolt_. Each new Minister for Magic had had their own ship created in their honour, a millennia old tradition from the beginning of the Ministry of Magic itself, and Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt had chosen for Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley to hold their wedding on its maiden voyage.

The party was now in full swing, clusters of people ceremonially dressed in the Gryffindor colours of red and gold were scattered in groups across the deck, some leaning over the banisters to admire the sea view, some sitting at tables, some dancing around to the music, but all definitely enjoying themselves.

Harry and Ginny Potter, naturally, were enjoying themselves the most. The day they were sharing was one that they had been dreaming of for years, one dream which had finally come true, out of so many that had not done.

Suddenly, a young blonde boy appeared behind the couple, a large black camera clutched in his hand. For a moment, just a moment, Harry could've sworn that the boy was Colin Creevey, but knew immediately that it could not be, as the boy was one of those who had perished in the War, one of the first to fall at Voldemort's feet. However, Harry did know the person, and he hadn't been far off with his first guess.

"Dennis!" Harry exclaimed with happiness, shaking the young boy's free hand vigorously. "How are you?"

"I'm alright, I suppose, Harry. It's great to see that you and Ginny finally got married. I always knew that you would." Dennis smiled, his excitement and enthusiasm from childhood evidently not disintegrated, even after the tragic events of the previous year.

"Then you knew more than we did!" Ginny laughed, bringing the whole group to stitches. Dennis then piped up, speaking a little more nervously than he had been doing earlier.

"Um, Harry, Ginny, I don't know if you'd like to, but I know that, if Colin was here, he'd have been begging to take a photograph of you two. So-" he trailed off a little after that, considering how to phrase his question.

"Dennis, we'd love to." Ginny finished, answering the question the young man had yet to ask.

"That's great. Thanks!" he exclaimed, position his camera at the two, who were resting in each other's arms as they leant across the side of the ship. Seemingly having a better idea, Dennis charmed his camera to float out over the water, then snapped a picture of the two leaning over the edge. He returned it to him with a flick of his wand, the picture emerging from it with another, which he glanced at with a smile and a gasp, his eyes flashing with delight. "Wow! I think this is the best picture I've ever taken! Thank you so much. Hold on."

Dennis waved his mind just one final time, watching as some of the ink from the picture leapt into the air, twisting and turning before settling on the piece of parchment he had taken from his pocket. He refolded the paper, replaced it in his pocket, then turned to face his friends, placing the original parchment page in Harry's palm.

"Consider it a wedding present." Dennis told them, with a smile to return their own, before walking off to talk to Gabrielle Delacour, who had been standing alone, just a few feet away from Fleur and her baby daughter Victoire.

"It seems that we might need to purchase one of our own." Ginny laughed, her eyes fixed on the talking pair.

"Good. He deserves to be happy." Harry said, a little distant once again. Ginny saw this and took her hand in hers, turning him round to face her, taking the picture from his hand and placing it down beside them. She knew Harry so well that she could read his expression and know what he was thinking. She knew that he was thinking about all the people who should have been there, but weren't. She had done the same, of course, thought of Fred, of Remus, of Tonks, but had overcome the pain of loss, instead looking forwards, to the future. The future they would share.

"We all do." she told him confidently, that thought still in her head.

Harry didn't answer, only smiled, leaning over to capture Ginny's lips with his. Once they had broken apart, Harry turned them, leaning on the side of the ship with his arms around his wife's waist, cradling her against his chest as she leaned back against him, sighing in utter contentment.

"Yeah, we do." Harry agreed with a nod, pulling Ginny even closer to him. "I just hope it ends up that way."

As the fireworks continued to explode in the sky, colours bursting all around them and showering them in sparks, Ginny and Harry just rested, completely blissful in each other's arms. Behind them, the Muggle photograph that Dennis had taken for them laid on an empty table, the bride and groom's smiles illuminated, while the background of the ship was glowing a little in the reflected light.

Little did the happy couple know, the picture was already beginning to tear, and it wasn't long before their perfect new world would be torn apart just as much.

A/N: Wanted to get this up, so I've worked on it. I'm going to be posting quite a few new stories, as my ideas page on my computer is absolutely huge, so I'm trying to run it down. Please review!


	2. Gemstone Dreams

Chapter Two

A/N: Thanks to outlawed-singing-sorcerer-girl and dream-on-sunday for being my first reviewers!

_Devon, England_

In the highest bedroom of the Burrow, in the top bunk of the second bed within the girls' bedroom, a pair of emerald eyes fluttered open.

'_That was the strangest dream I've ever had_.' thought the redheaded girl, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she sat up, minding her head on the ceiling, as she had learnt to do since hitting her head on it every morning for the past year.

Knowing that, with her mind so active, she would be unable to return to sleep, the child climbed down from the bed and began to make her way downstairs, ignoring the protest of her recently awoken limbs.

All the way down the stairs, the girl contemplated her dream. It had been quite simple, in comparison to other dreams that her family had described to her, but still, for some reason, it seemed to be strange.

In her dream, she had seen a girl. She looked precisely the same as her in face, but the girl's hair was the shade of the midnight sky, not of the flames of a winter's fire. The girl had been staring into a mirror, in what the dreamer had assumed to be her bedroom. There was very little else in the dream, just the girl looking at the mirror, but still, for some reason, it had an air of importance about it.

"Crystal?" came a soft voice from the kitchen. The girl jumped as she heard her name called. She had not thought that anyone else would be downstairs at this time of the morning, but, seeing that the clock was about to strike seven o'clock, she sighed in realisation that one person was always up long before this.

The girl turned to see her mother sat in a chair beside the kitchen table, absorbed in the latest edition of Quidditch Monthly, but not so much that she had not noticed the girl come down the stairs. The girl had always found it quite scary, in truth, how her mother could seem to see her while looking completely away from the direction she was coming from, but she was becoming quite used to it.

"Morning, Mum." the girl greeted, taking a seat beside the woman, who had finally placed the magazine down and was now looking straight at her daughter, reaching out a thumb to trace the dark circles beneath her eyes.

"Barely. You need to get more sleep, sweetheart." she stated, leaving very little room for a retort, though, as always, the younger redhead did.

"You can talk. You're always up before I am and awake long after I've gone to bed. You need to sleep too, Mum." she reasoned, eliciting a small laugh from the woman she spoke to.

"I suppose so." she agreed, with a slight nod of her head, though she immediately changed the subject. "You'll be getting your school letter soon, sweetheart."

"My Hogwarts letter?" The elder redhead fell silent.

"Crystal… you aren't going to Hogwarts, sweetheart." she admitted with a sigh, wincing a little as her daughter began to become visibly agitated.

"What do you mean I'm not going to Hogwarts?!" the ten year old exclaimed, her hair flying all about her shoulders as she jumped down from her seat, spinning round to face her mother, with a clear expression of pure anger on her face. "All the family have gone to Hogwarts. You did, so did all my uncles and almost all my aunties, all my cousins are going too, Grandma, Grandpa… even Dad. So why not me?"

"Crystal, I'm sorry. You are going to Beauxbattons and that is final." The tone of the woman's voice left no room for questioning, and an air of finality about it that was unmistakable.

"Fine. Just because you can't stand to be in the same country as me, just because I exist!" the girl exclaimed, turning on her heel and stomping out of the room, ignoring her mother's cries for her to come back as tears of frustration began to fall slowly down her cheeks.

When she returned to her bedroom, Crystal did not hesitate at all before slamming the door closed, noticing only too late that the action had woken her cousins from their sleep. She took little note of this even when she had discovered it, though, as she merely climbed back up onto her bed, just managing to lay her head down onto the pillow before she began to sob.

"Hey, Gemstone?" asked her younger cousin of seven months, Victoire, who had been awoken from her place on the bunk bed by the vibrations from the slamming door. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." the redhead lied, raising her head from her pillow, a mistake she regretted instantly as it showed the blonde that she was in fact lying.

"You're not. What's happened?" asked a second voice, one that belonged to eight year old Dominique, Victoire's sister.

"Nothing, it's just…" Crystal began, but stopped when she saw that both girls were looking at her, not to mention Molly and Lucy, sisters from the bed across the room, and Rose, the youngest of them all, looking up from the bunk below. "Mum. She's told me I'm going to Beauxbattons, not Hogwarts."

"What?" the girls chorused, the shock in their voices just as uniform as their speech was. "Why not?"

"I don't know. She just said that it was final, and that she was sorry. I don't know what I've done wrong." the eldest girl stated, tears surfacing in her emerald eyes, leaving a shining film over them.

"You won't have done anything, Gemstone." Rose comforted, reaching up to take her cousin's hand and holding onto it tightly. "She probably just wants to see how you'll do there, or something like that."

"Maybe." was the only reply Crystal gave, but her tone was distant. For some reason, all she could think of was the dream she had experienced the night before.

All she could think of was the girl.

A/N: Next chapter will be just Phoenix's POV, then they'll meet. Thanks for reading this, and please review it.


	3. Flight of the Flame

Chapter Three

A/N: Thank you to Nameless Secret Keeper, Nibs98 and Guest for reviewing the last chapter.

_Vineyard, California_

In a higher room of Niagara House, in the sole four poster bed in the place, a pair of emerald eyes fluttered open.

The girl, who was slowly sitting up in her bed, had had the strangest dream she had ever had, one so strange that it remained in her mind long after she had woken.

The dream had not been overly strange, in truth. If another person had seen it, they would probably have not thought it strange at all, but for her, it truly was. Besides, after all the stories her father had told her, of the many nightmares he had suffered from when he was younger, all dreams meant something. Perhaps this was a warning.

The moment she thought that, she knew that it was false. That was spoken in the way that a believer in Divination would speak, something that was completely shunned in their household, as it was just a sham to make money for most people that practiced it. Besides, how could something so ordinary be a warning?

All the dream had consisted of was a girl, not dissimilar looking to herself, standing in a room which must have been her bedroom, though it seemed to be shared with others, due to the amount of beds standing within it. Come to think of it, for some reason, the girl seemed to be familiar. As if they had met once before.

A knock on the door brought all thoughts of her dreams flying out of the brunette's head. Sighing a little, she called summons for the figure outside the door to enter. The annoyance dissipated immediately as she saw her father stood in the doorway, though why she would think it could be anyone else was beyond her, as no one else was present in the house.

"Morning, Flamey!" the man exclaimed, smiling good naturedly. The young girl did the same, letting out a tiny giggle at the use of her childhood nickname.

"I thought you stopped using that name ages ago, Dad!" she responded, questioning the man slightly, though she was only really teasing, and he knew as much.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Phoenix." the dark haired one replied, bowing so low that his nose near touched the ground. He reminded her of the House-Elf they had used to have, before her father had sent him back to the old house in London, where he would be much happier. She was quite happy with this arrangement, really, as she had never liked Kreacher in the least.

"Your pardon is accepted." she replied, in a falsely upper class voice, giggling a little once she had finished the jesting statement. Coughing slightly, the young brunette continued, her usual, American tinted accent resumed. "So, what do you want, Dad?"

"Not much, just wanted to talk to you a little. About school." The moment school was mentioned, Phoenix became instantly interested in his words.

"What about school, Dad? Have I got a Hogwarts letter yet? Have I been accepted?" she asked, the excitement in her voice easily noticeable. However, it took just a moment for the girl to realise that her father did not share the same reaction. Suddenly, she became much more curious and nervous in equal measures. "Dad?"

"Phoenix, I have to tell you something important. Something about Hogwarts." The sadness in the man's voice was very clear, and it was unnerving the young brunette very much. Her father was always such a joyful man, and he had never sounded so pitiful in all the near eleven years she had known him.

"What is it?" she asked, trying to keep the nervous edge from her voice. "Dad?"

"Phoenix, you aren't going to Hogwarts."

The young girl backed away from her father, her head still reeling with the shock of what he had just told her. Hogwarts had been the thing she had been most looking forward to, ever since she had been old enough to understand what it was. Now, that was all being snatched away from her.

"I'm not going to Hogwarts?" Phoenix clarified, in a quiet, dangerous tone. Her father nodded in the affirmative. "But that isn't fair! I've tried to be good, I've tried to learn everything! I might not have succeeded, but I tried! And now you're throwing that back in my face, telling me that it isn't good enough, and that I should've done it anyway!"

"Phoenix, that is not what I meant by that. I just think that attending Beauxbattons will be good for you, that's all."

"Well, I don't!" the brunette hollered, her calmness long since gone as she all but screamed at her father, her dignity going out of the window, and her caring for that fact going with it. "I think I'd be better off at Hogwarts, but it obviously doesn't matter what I think, because you have decided that you hate me, and you can't even stand to be on the same continent as me!"

Phoenix did not wait for a response, and so by the time the dark haired man gave one, she was already out of the door and running down through their extensive gardens, the only place where she felt she could always find refuge.

Collapsing down to the grass, Phoenix allowed herself to cry a little, though she was more screaming to the blue sky above her than simply letting tears stream down her face.

'_This is all his fault.'_ the young girl thought, clutching a dozen blades of grass and pulling them from the ground in her anger. '_Everything I've been waiting for for years, and he's just destroyed it all in a single minute.'_

Yet for some reason, amidst the boiling frustration she felt at her father's revelation, the face of the girl from her twilight vision still remained at the forefront of her mind, being all she could see. That was the strangest thing of all.

All she could think about was the girl.

A/N: I copied lines from the last chapter and changed them a bit to emphasise the point that they're twins, and that they have a connection.


	4. Beauxbattons

Chapter Four

A/N: Thanks to bkwrmgrl87 and Locked Secret Keeper for reviewing.

At last, dawn approached over Calais, where the pupils of Beauxbattons Academy of Magic were just rising from their beds, preparing for that evening, when the new group of first years would arrive at the gates. The students, unlike previous years, were all of French origin. All except for two, of course.

As the train arrived at the station near Calais, Crystal stepped out onto the platform alongside the fellow new students, tightly clutching a thick novel in one hand and a travelling cat basket in the other, containing an amber furred kitten, so deep in slumber that she had hardly noticed the change of country. '_Well, it isn't Hogwarts.'_ she thought with a sigh, though not one of sadness or disappointment. '_But it'll do for now, and I'll stay here if Mum wants me to.'_

In truth, after she had spoken to her mother, the young redhead had felt very guilty, and she no longer blamed the woman for her attending the school. It was merely an effort to protect her from something. She did not know what it was that she needed protection from, but she knew that her mother was extremely careful of her interests. If she wanted to keep her away from Hogwarts, there must have been a reason why she did so, and Crystal trusted the woman enough to give her the benefit of the doubt. After giving up her dream Quidditch career to become a single mother, it was the least that she deserved.

On the other side of the platform, Phoenix was stood on the platform, glancing in exasperation at the signs, which were all, to the surprise of only her, it seemed, were written entirely in French. '_Great!'_ she thought, sighing audibly. '_That's all I need! Foreign languages__,__ to make this year harder than it already is!'_ With a huffing sigh, the girl ascended the staircases that led to the palace, where the girls would need to walk at least a mile up to get to their destination. '_This is one of the reasons why I wanted to go to Hogwarts.'_ Phoenix grumbled inside her mind, lifting her trunk begrudgingly up the first step, moving her brunette locks from her eyes, in an attempt to make at least something a little easier for herself. '_I wonder why no one else is carrying their trunk.'_

Once they had finally reached the top of the steps, Crystal, alongside the other first year girls, was forced to endure a long winded speech about the expected behaviour, a lecture which she had already received from her aunt Hermione, who, considering she worked in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, was extremely strict about following the rules of any establishment. Each girl of the new year of student was bored out of her mind. Each girl except one.

Outside the hall, three quarters of the way up the steps, Phoenix was still attempting to carry her trunk up with her. '_How can all those girls have gotten up so quickly?'_ she asked herself, huffing in annoyance as she lifted the luggage up yet another step. '_It must be a French thing.'_

It took the girl another few minutes to reach the Great Hall, having left her luggage outside the room, not wanting to draw any more attention to herself than she already would do by arriving late. '_I'm sure the House-Elves will take care of it anyway, like they do at Hogwarts. They seem to have taken the cases from the others, so I think that they will for me as well. I hope so.'_

As she snuck through the doors, the girl saw that everyone seemed to be seated, including the group of other first years that she was supposed to be among. '_Oh, that's just brilliant!'_ Phoenix thought, her voice dripping with sarcasm, even in her mind. '_Drawing attention to myself on the first day, and being told off before the first hour of being here is over! Dad's really going to be thrilled about that.'_

Deciding that further procrastination would only further worsen the situation, the brunette snuck forwards, weaving through the crowds of girls sat around the seven rectangular tables until she reached the one at the far end of the hall. Luckily, all of the professors, or _professeurs_ as they insisted on being called, were too occupied listening to the speech of the _directrice_, Madame Boisvert, to notice the head of dark locks bobbing and weaving between the groups of children.

Eventually, at a loss for anywhere else to go, Phoenix sat down beside a girl with bright red hair. '_The same colour mine used to be.'_ she thought, remembering how she had previously looked, before she had changed her appearance, in order to share more similarities in appearance with her father.

As she looked more closely at the girl, though she could only view the back of her head from the angle she was sat at, the second girl could see a resemblance between the two of them, however vague it may seem, but also a resemblance between herself and someone else. She just didn't know who.

"And so, girls, I welcome you to your first year at Beauxbattons Academy of Magic." Madame Boisvert declared to the hall, her arms extended widely, in a way that reminded Crystal of the stories her uncle, Ron, had told her, about the mad, brilliant Headmaster at Hogwarts, and how he had always been extravagant with his speeches and with his gestures. From everything she had been told about Albus Dumbledore, the girl could not say that she was surprised.

Something that had surprised her, however, was the familiarity of the girl that had arrived late, creeping through the tables as if she believed no one could see her. '_I don't know where I could have seen her before.'_ she wondered. '_I just know that I have.'_

It was not long until the girls were dismissed to their dormitories, with two of them so deep in thought that they hardly even noticed their dismissal.

Their time at Beauxbattons had begun.

A/N: Please review!


	5. Meetings at Midnight

Chapter Five

A/N:

That night, of the thirty that had entered into the school, only two girls stayed awake past the stroke of midnight.

One of the girls pretended to be asleep, as she was used to doing at this hour, to avoid entering into the conversations which her cousins stayed up partaking in. She lay still on her side, clutching at the edge of her pillow and twisting a lock of her amber hair around her index finger, trying in all futility to fall asleep when she knew that she would not be able to do so when she was so worried about her family.

She had not said a proper goodbye to her cousins, as a few of them had already left for Hogwarts before she'd arrived home from last minute shopping in Diagon Alley with her mother, and found that she now regretted the decision more than she had thought would be possible. Despite the fact that she and her many cousins had not always gotten along, Crystal could not help but long for the entirety of her family. Even for her father.

The other girl gave no false pretences as to her being asleep, as she had never been the type to do so. Her ability at acting had always been great, although that was only when she played a character. When she was herself, the brunette was relatively truthful. For the majority of the time, in any case.

She was also longing for her father, as she had been extremely dismissive of him ever since he had told her she was not attending Hogwarts, a dream she had held ever since she was small enough to stand in awe of the size of a house, let alone of the ancient castle. She had not truly said a proper goodbye to him, merely shouted the word as she ran onto the train to avoid missing it. She did not allow him an embrace, something she did when she was merely going out to see Buckbeak, their Hippogriff, who resided at the end of the garden, let alone when she was going away to boarding school for months. It was something that she truly regretted, and she longed to be able to hold onto him. As she had always longed to hold onto her mother.

Unfortunately, Phoenix had never been one to be full of patience, and soon enough, she had turned on the light with a lazy flick of her wand, though the sparks that had come off of the appliance had come dangerously close to impact with the curtains, causing her to make a noise somewhere between a wince at what had almost occurred and a sigh of frustration at the fact that she still had not quite mastered the spell she had been attempting since she had first got her wand in the summer holidays.

Unable to stop herself, Crystal turned to face the noise, having started so violently that she was certain the other girl knew she was awake in any case. When she had rolled onto her right side, so that she could see the brunette, who was the one she had correctly assumed to have been the other to be awake, she saw that the girl was also watching her. '_Well, maybe I'm not as good as pretending to sleep as I thought I was.'_ she admitted in her mind, though she would never do so out loud, as her family had taught her to be too proud to do so.

"So, you've been awake this whole time?" the darker haired girl asked, in a sleep weighted American accent, although the tone of her voice suggested she knew the answer.

"Yes. I can't really sleep away from home, or away from my mum, anyway. I haven't done it before." In truth, Crystal did not know why she was confessing such things to a girl she had only just met, but she felt as if she could trust the other, for some reason, one that she could not quite put her finger on nonetheless.

"Oh, I'm the same. I've never been on holiday without my dad either, but I don't really try to sleep whether I'm at home or away. It's just so boring to try, and too boring to sleep in general." the brunette told the redhead, a smirk lighting up her face, though she tried to mask a yawn as she did so. Perhaps honest had been rather a strong word to describe her, after all.

"Do you have any other family, apart from your father?" the young girl asked, thinking that, if the louder of the two of them had discovered a great deal about her, then she might as well return the favour and find out a little more about her. They were to share a dormitory for the next seven years, after all. Crystal would be spending more time with Phoenix than she would with her own family.

"No. Just me and Dad. That's how it's always been, really, because he split up with my mom when I was a baby, and then went to live in America." she admitted in answer, not seeming to be at all bothered by the fact.

"I'm the same. Except that it was my father who left us, while I stayed in England with my mother, and the rest of my family. There are lots of us, at least twenty, so I was never on my own. I always had someone, or at least I did back then. But not now." the redhead told her roommate, though she could not say that she was as unfazed as the other had been.

"Maybe we're not so different, after all, English." Phoenix told the other girl, who seemed to be younger, if only by a little. After a minute of consideration, as if to wonder whether she would do something that she did not usually do, but then she did so, holding out her hand for the smaller to shake. "My name's Phoenix, by the way."

"Crystal." she replied, but only in a whisper, as the pair of them had experienced a strange thought, one that had appeared in absolute tandem, from a night not long before they had set off for Beauxbattons.

At the same moment, both brunette and redhead considered that they had seen the other once before. As they glanced toward each other, they both realised something important.

They each lay opposite to the girl from their twilight visions. It seemed that they had not been merely dreams, after all.

A/N: The discovery will probably come in the next chapter, I just wanted to establish the characters, and how they met. Please review!


	6. A Plot Enacted

Chapter Six

A/N: Thank you to Vermlog360 and graceluvsya for reviewing the last chapter.

After only a week of schooling at the Beauxbattons Academy of Magic, both Phoenix and Crystal were beginning to miss their homes more than ever. They had not received many letters, the redhead only a couple from her cousins and the brunette receiving none at all, and this had made them wish to an even greater extent that the end of term would come swiftly. However, as it was only the midst of September, nothing they could do would bring this wish to reality.

Having realised this, both of them had begun to put a great deal more effort into their school lessons. The young Weasley had been achieving top marks, no doubt a by-product of growing up around her aunt, Hermione, and of having been tutored by the woman from a very young age, when she had shown obvious magical aptitude, particularly in Charms, while Potter's daughter had been putting more effort into the annoyance of her teachers, never having been one to study to a great extent, or to show obvious prowess in school, though she did have a certain amount of skill in arts such as Potions, which she had inherited from both her father and her grandmother, or so she had been told, despite the fact that she had very little interest in the subject itself.

Their efforts had come to such an extent that it had pushed the two apart, leaving them in a relationship more akin to rivalry than to friendship. Crystal had made friends with two of the other girls from their dormitory, Amelie and Elise, both of whom had come from Calais to get their education, and so were permitted to return home at weekends if they wished to, though they did not do so, as they had come to the school to get away from younger siblings who annoyed them during the day. Despite the fact that they had had a lot of disruption during childhood from said siblings, an irritation that the redhead could relate to, if not with siblings then with the younger cousins she had grown up with, the two girls were intelligent, though not quite to the extent of their friend, and utterly charming. Meanwhile, the dark haired girl had made friends with the other two girls, Charlotte and Olivia, who both shared the same personality as their new acquaintance, both being as naughty and disruptive as she was.

However, their professors had noticed the feud on the horizon, between the two girls and their entourages of sorts, and so had seen fit to separate them in lessons, to minimise the risks of arguments, when they had begun to become disruptive to the learning of not only the six girls, but the more susceptible of their classmates as well, leading to the grades in the room dropping down. Eventually, the staff pulled together and decided that, for the good of the other child, the two girls doing the ringleading should be prevented from attending the Christmas outing, so that they could learn some tolerance for each other when they were left alone together. However, Madame Maxime, an elderly woman who had been headmistress for many a year, disagreed, and said that the pair should be given one more chance before such drastic action was taken. Given that she was the woman in power, that was the course of action which was taken.

Unfortunately, while Crystal had distanced herself from the vexing American, Phoenix did not seem to be able to take the hint, as her devious attitude could not be prevented, whether or not she attempted to do so. And so she had devised a plan to make sure that 'Little Miss Perfect', as she had come to call the girl, got into as much trouble for the prank as she would for planning it. After all, if she was going to go down in flames, she might as well drag her enemy down to burn with her.

When they sat down in the Potions classroom, the young Weasley seated herself at the very front desk, alongside Amelie, as she had worked with Elise in Charms the period previously, and alternated between working with the two. On the other hand, Phoenix sat at the very back, with Charlotte and Olivia, waiting only a few minutes, until the lesson was in full flow, to put her plan into action.

As soon as the professor, whose name had slipped the dark haired girl's mind, if she had ever bothered to listen to it in the first place, had set them to their task for the day, brewing a Cure for Boils, she moved from her seat, to an empty one only a few feet away from where her target was sat, the perfect position for the attack she was about to make.

Ensuring that no one had their eye on her, her hand drifted beneath the table, to the pocket of her school trousers, a garment which had already caused her more stares than she would have liked, as none of the others did so, something which she had never cared about, as she did not mind about their opinions, and didn't really care to hear them. A moment later, her hand resurfaced, a small bag clutched in it, one which contained a small bag of dust, a deceptively simple looking powder that would be the cause of all the problems, not only for the professor leading the class, but also for herself and, most importantly, the British snob, as she had come to know the girl as.

The moment that the professor had turned his back, she sprang into action, throwing the powder across the room, an unsubtle smirk emerging on her face as the booming sound of an explosion echoed through the classroom. Immediately, their teacher whipped his head around to face the class, an explosion on his face which was certainly akin to fury.

"Headmistress' office." he instructed, his voice almost a hiss, showing his anger, which he was doing a terrible job of hiding. That is, if he had tried at all. "The pair of you."

As they exited the room, no words were exchanged between the two girls, only a glance which could mean but one thing.

'_This is war.'_

A/N: The devil child has struck, and dragged the angel down with her! I love both of them so much! Please review!


	7. Discoveries

Chapter Seven

A/N: Thank you to gracieluvsya, Radiogirl12, AugustSummer and Vermlog630 for reviewing the last chapter.

'_The pair of you are going to stay locked in here together, so that you can think on your actions.'_

The words of the headmistress, Madame Maxime, still echoed through the mind of both girls, to such an extent that they seemed to fly about the room in an echo, as if she was a ghost intent on haunting them for the foolish behaviour which had gotten them into this mess in the first place.

All the other girls in the year group, or in the school most likely, had gone out on a visit to the nearby beach in Calais, which was charmed to remain pleasantly warm even in wintertime, as a reward for their hard work in the past term. Their punishment had deliberately been delayed until that time, for so long that they had almost forgotten about the incident, so that they would miss out on something anticipated for such a long time, for the purpose of teaching them a harsh lesson, to ensure they would never act so recklessly again.

'_This is completely unfair.'_ Crystal sighed in her mind, looking across the room at Phoenix with fire in her eyes. The brunette was looking back at her, smugness lighting up her features. She had obviously planned to drag her down in her mischief, and she had succeeded. Now, the young girl was stuck here with her worst enemy, for an incident in which, if anything, she had been a victim. '_I had nothing to do with that explosion. It was all that stupid Phoenix, and she doesn't even seem to care! Oh, I wish I had never even spoken to her that night. It could have made my life a lot easier.'_

'_Who does she think she is?'_ On the bed opposite to hers, Phoenix was looking at her in response, manipulating her features into a look of self-satisfaction, one which she knew would annoy the British girl the most. '_She's probably brooding over how it had nothing to do with her, but if she hadn't been such an annoying little goody goody, I wouldn't have had to play that prank in the first place. It's as much her fault as it is mine__.__'_

Finally, the quieter of the two was the one that broke the silence, as it had become like a lead weight on their shoulders, or on hers at least. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, but carried through the silence like a cry on the winter's wind. "I don't want to fight anymore, Phoenix."

Immediately, their eye contact broke, as both girls looked away in shame. They had been friends on their first night in the building, the only friend that either one had had, at the time. How could they have allowed themselves to come to the point of being enemies in this way? To glorify in the other's annoyance or failure, and to achieve happiness from their pain. It was not how they had been on the first night, as that had been how they had wished to remain. Perhaps there was still time.

"I know. I don't want to fight either." Phoenix replied, returning her gaze to the other girl's. This time, there was no annoyance in their gazes, nor was there any guilt. All that remained in their eyes, an incredibly matching shade of emerald green, was a sense of friendship, as they were both willing to start again, to put the past behind them and strive to be the friends that they had been, prior to the time when a war was declared between them, a war that neither of them really knew the purpose of, now that they thought of it. As she did not yet know the answer, the brunette asked her companion of her knowledge, wondering whether she would have any more insight that her former enemy did, in regards to their ridiculous feud. "How did this fighting even start?"

"I honestly can't remember." was the response that Crystal gave, a slight smile on her lips, one which was soon mirrored by the other girl. It took only a moment for the two to be in stitches of laughter, at the ridiculous idea of what had separated them. "It was something trivial, I know that much, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was."

"Then we should start again." the American girl suggested, receiving a slow nod from the other after a little while. She herself had been about to recommend doing so, and had been beaten to it, but she found that, for the first time, she did not mind Phoenix speaking what she had wished to speak, and merely savoured the fact that they were no longer enemies. "Let's pretend that we have never met, so that we can start again properly."

"Alright." the redhead agreed promptly. "Let's start with names. My name is Crystal Nymphadora Weasley. What about you?"

"Phoenix Lily Potter." she answered, with a smirk that the other girl thought had never enough become second nature, due to the frequency at which she did so. "I know. Stupid, right?"

"You think that your name is silly?" the girl asked, the disbelief in her voice quite clear from the tone. "My middle name is Nymphadora, for Merlin's sake. Even the woman that I'm named after herself didn't like it, and I can see why! It's atrocious!"

"It isn't that bad, you know. I don't think it is anyway, but at least it's your middle name. No one has to know it." Phoenix told her friend, a point which the other girl conceded. "At least you're not named after a bird that got it's feathers caught in a barbecue!"

"Alright, fair point." Crystal agreed, but changed the subject quickly, in case it became an argument, something which had a habit of happening between the two of them. And so, to distract the girl, she made a suggestion. "Let's play a game. Right, I'm going to ask a question, and we both have to answer after three. So, when is your birthday?"

Both girls had thought this to be a good idea, but what they had not expected was the answer that the pair of them gave, in unison, as the rules of the game required.

_One, two, three…_

"August 31st."

A/N: Just a hint of realisation there, but more to come in the next chapter! Please review!


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